With the advent of quick setting adhesives, such as adhesives which will cure from a liquid to a solid phase in but a few seconds, increasing attention has been given to utilization of such adhesives in the automotive industry for the attachment of trim or other components to automobile bodies. In a production environment where the body is moving on a conveyor line, and the parts to be secured are brought to the moving body and but a few moments are available for securing the parts to the body, a problem has arisen as to how to hold the fasteners to the parts or the automobile body, as the case may be, while the quick setting adhesive goes from its liquid phase to its solid phase, i.e., changes state sufficiently so that a fastener will be retained
Heretofore it has been common practice to secure parts together using adhesives by clamping them for a sufficient length of time that the adhesive could cure or set. On large or irregularly shaped automotive body panel, clamping the fasteners thereagainst involves a cumbersome inefficient production step best avoided. While fasteners may be temporally secured to the substrate by piercing the substrate and having a portion of the fastener extend through the resulting hole to temporarily lock the fastener to the substrate while adhesive thereon sets, such as shown in the above mentioned related cases, the resulting perforations of the substrate create serious corrosion and other problems. Accordingly, it is desirable to be able to avoid the necessity of clamping fasteners against a body panel without resort to external devices and yet not effect the clamping by virtue of piercing the panel.
Another problem confronting the fastener designs is the retention of the adhesive in a non-reactive state within or on the fastener and providing some way that the adhesive can be suddenly made reactive and be deposited at the point of intended use.